[1][2] In September 1977, two months after General Zia Ul-Haq toppled and deposed the Bhutto regime in a military coup earlier on 5 July 1977,[2] the almost three-year-old local police report registered on 11 November 1974 at Ichhra police station in Lahore, known in Pakistan as First Information Report (FIR), of Nawab Mohammad Ahmed Khan Kasuri's murder was dug out and used as a pretext to arrest Bhutto.
[3] Nevertheless, the trial that ran for five months and was headed by a staunch anti-Bhutto Lahore High Court judge, Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain, who sentenced Bhutto to death.
[2] Later in 2011, it was claimed by Pakistan Peoples Party member and attorney Babar Awan that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had written different applications and letters to the then Punjab governor requesting him to transfer his case to another court after highlighting bias of Justice Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain against him.
Babar Awan read out these applications and letters in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in front of then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who was holding a hearing to revisit the case, in 2011, to determine whether the 1977 trial was fairly conducted.
[1] Upon Maulvi Mushtaq's return to Pakistan, General Zia Ul-Haq elevated him to be the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court so he could preside over Bhutto's trial.